Legendary Singer Roberta Flack Dies at 88: Reflecting on Her Iconic Career and Health Struggles
Beyond her music, Roberta Flack was an educator, author and a resilient spirit
Grammy-winning singer Roberta Flack passed away on February 24, 2025. She was 88 years old and best known for her songs “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” “Feel Like Makin’ Love” and “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”
“We are heartbroken that the glorious Roberta Flack passed away this morning,” a statement issued by Flack’s friends and family read. “She died peacefully surrounded by her family. Roberta broke boundaries and records. She was also a proud educator.”
Flack died on her way to the hospital from cardiac arrest after a years-long battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), though it’s unclear whether that contributed to her passing.
Keep reading to learn more about the singer’s iconic career and stoic battle with the neurological disorder.
The early life of Roberta Flack
Flack was born on February 10, 1937, in Black Mountain, North Carolina. She fell in love with performing after watching her church choir. This passion for performing eventually earned her a music scholarship to Howard University in Washington, D.C., which she attended at just 15 years old. While in school, she majored in voice and served as the university choir’s assistant conductor before graduating and becoming a music and English teacher in Farmville, North Carolina.
She moved back to Washington, D.C., a couple of years later to teach middle school in a “part of the city where kids weren’t that privileged,” according to Flack.
“They were privileged enough to have music education. I really wanted them to read music,” she continued. “First, I’d get their attention [she reportedly did this by singing]. Then I could teach them.”
During her time as a teacher, Flack performed at various nightclubs, eventually being hired as a full-time performer at Mr. Henry’s Restaurant in 1968. Les McCann discovered her and arranged for her to perform at Atlantic Records in the hopes of getting a record deal. After three straight hours of singing, she was given one.
Roberta Flack’s rise to musical fame
In 1969, Flack’s first album, First Take, was released. It had eight songs, with one—“Ballad of the Sad Young Men”—being exactly seven minutes long.
Sadly, the album didn’t immediately take off like Flack hoped it would. Instead, her success came later, when Clint Eastwood put “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” in his 1971 movie Play Misty for Me.
“Through the years, I’ve sung that song thousands of times, and it has taken on different stories in my life, [but] honestly, at the time it was recorded, I sang it about my cat who had just died,” Flack told PEOPLE. “I loved that cat so much. That’s the story I was telling in the recording.”
From then on, Flack became a musical legend, releasing a total of 15 albums and winning 5 Grammy Awards.
Her last album—Let It Be Roberta—was released in 2012 and was made up of a variety of The Beatles covers. She also released a song in 2018 entitled “Running” for the documentary 3100: Run and Become.
That was the last song she ever recorded.
Health struggles and ALS diagnosis
In 2016, Flack had a stroke, which caused her to have several health problems, including in 2018 when she was taken to the hospital right before being honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jazz Foundation of America.
Flack contracted COVID-19 in January 2022, which was the same year she announced her ALS diagnosis. The disease reportedly “made it impossible [for her] to sing and not easy to speak.”
“It will take a lot more than ALS to silence this icon,” a statement issued by Flack’s team in 2022 read. “Miss Flack plans to stay active in her musical and creative pursuits. Her fortitude and joyful embrace of music that lifted her from modest circumstances to the international spotlight remain vibrant and inspired.”
For the most part, Flack kept details of her diagnosis private.
Legacy and later years
Also in 2022, Flack’s documentary Roberta debuted at New York’s DOC NYC Film Festival. It was later shown on PBS in 2023 as part of the channel’s American Masters series.
Then, in 2023, she released a children’s book entitled The Green Piano: How Little Me Found Music, which was all about how her father helped foster her love of music by gifting her an old green piano.
“He painted it green, and it smelled bad, but I played and practiced for untold hours on that piano,” the singer said in 2022. “It gave me wings of music that, as a 9-year-old girl, I needed so badly. I’ve been knocked down so many times, but I kept trying. Keep trying.”
Flack was married once from 1966 to 1972 to Steve Novosel, which was very controversial at the time since it violated Virginia’s law that made interracial marriage illegal at the time. Loving v. Virginia, which struck down laws banning interracial marriage, came a year later—in 1967.
She had no children but was the godmother to singer Bernard Wright, who died at age 55 in 2022.
Roberta Flack’s legacy will continue to inspire generations through her music, teaching and unwavering spirit. May she rest in peace.
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